As it turns out, Supervisors such as Avalos and others were engaging the same lobbyists to enhance their political careers that the City Fields Foundation (CFF) was employing. Clemens’ influential political lobbying firm was buttering both sides of its bread by promoting and funding political candidates and CFF at the same time.

Wiener with Ginsburg

At a time when Ginsburg, a CFF “Team” member, was being called in front of a City Commission for ethics violations, one of Clemens’s campaign beneficiaries, Supervisor Scott Wiener, scolded Ginsburg's critics. Wiener said, “We see charges of fraud and corruption… I just want to say to anyone who was part of that group who said those kind of things … it completely degrades the public process.”

Wiener, Emblidge, and Hannan

Just days later, Wiener made no such admonition at a Commission meeting when a speaker launched into a homophobic rant in support of a CFF project. (Wiener represents San Francisco’s predominately gay Castro District.) Wiener along with CFF “Team” members Ginsburg, Hirsch, Hannan and CFF legalrep Emblidge, passively sat by and allowed the speaker’s shameful -- but CFF supportive -- homophobic comments to linger without any rebuttal in their follow up comments.

Buell defends CFF at public forum

In 2013 Ginsburg was accused of sabotaging a public forum discussion that was to scrutinize a CFF project -- with the assistance of emails and phone calls sent by Hirsch, and lobbyists for CFF. A San Francisco Ethics Task Force charged with protecting the public's interest in open government, found that he had, “abused the First Amendment free speech rights of private citizens.” Buell as well as “Team” member Ginsburg and some other government employees had additionally been found guilty of withholding and destroying public documents regarding CFF. Allegedly assisting was Recreation and Park Policy and Public Affairs Director Sarah Ballard. Ballard is; a Newsom appointee, a Ginsburg employee, and married to veteran Democratic strategist Nathan Ballard.

As General Manager of Recreation & Park Department, Ginsburg operated with a bag-of-goodies at his disposal that he could distribute. These included perks such as sky box seats at sporting events and accommodations for Yosemite Park.

Eric Mar in CFF promo video

The "San Francisco Chronicle" reported in 2013 that City records showed the Recreation and Park Department gave out 106 tickets to a rock concert, about two-thirds of which went to Ginsburg and his staff. Supervisor Eric Mar ended up with four luxury suite tickets valued at $310 each. Coincidentally, Mar appeared shortly afterwards in a CFF promotional video declaring, “I strongly support the [CFF] fields”.